Ver­sant care­ful­ly sets the stage for a $68M de­but of a biotech play­er fo­cused on syn­thet­ic lethal­i­ty

Over the past 18 months, the grow­ing team at Re­pare Ther­a­peu­tics has been qui­et­ly set­ting up shop in Ver­sant Ven­tures’ dis­cov­ery ops and fo­cus­ing on syn­thet­ic lethal­i­ty — the ther­a­peu­tic in­ter­play be­tween ge­net­ic mu­ta­tions and can­cer. Us­ing CRISPR gene edit­ing tech as an in­ter­ro­ga­tion tool, they’ve been play­ing with well known tar­gets like p53 and BR­CA1 to find out how they con­spire with oth­er mu­ta­tions in the de­struc­tion of a ma­lig­nan­cy, fol­low­ing the trail of le­sions in the pur­suit of new ther­a­pies that can work in the same fun­da­men­tal way those PARP in­hibitors you’ve been hear­ing so much about can fight can­cer.

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.

SIGN UP LOG IN BECOME A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER